If you are interested in the history of the Cedar Rapids, Iowa area or are looking for ancestor newspaper articles there, please read this new announcement from the Cedar Rapids Public Library Foundation about 3 million digitized newspaper pages that will be available online for researchers:

"Millions of pages from past issues of The Gazette, dating back to 1883, are being made available to the public in a digital, searchable format thanks to a partnership between the newspaper, Cedar Rapids Public Library Foundation, State Historical Society of Iowa and a local company that specializes in digitization. Jeff Kiley, chief operating officer of Advantage Companies of Cedar Rapids, said his company has been working community by community to audit all available physical material to see if it can be put on microfilm and later digitized as part of a project dubbed the IA History Project.

Kiley said Cedar Rapids is one of the first communities to be digitized. The project was announced in February and was unveiled by the State Historical Society with the hopes of preserving more than 12 million pages of Iowa newspapers.

“This one is more special because it’s in our backyard,” Kiley said.

So far, 2 million pages have been made available with 1 million more images expected to be added over the course of the next 18 months. Cedar Rapids papers separate from The Gazette, such as the Republican, or earlier namesakes like the Cedar Rapids Evening Gazette also have been archived."

This is a terrific example of a community working together in a public-private partnership to provide a fantastic historical resource to residents, former residents and others interested in the local area.